


Shadows & Truths

by drvology



Category: Batman (Unspecified canon), Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drvology/pseuds/drvology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are secrets we both know, that we alone keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows & Truths

**Author's Note:**

> B:TAS is my favorite Batverse incarnation; it's become my default setting when imagining the characters &c. That established, I think the fic I write can be aptly labeled 'canon & time nonspecific.'  
> → Written in an hour for 60_minute_fics challenge group @ LJ || 090806 Prompts #2&3 _Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction & Dirty Little Seekrit_

Most of my life has been spent in shadows. Memories, the things we do the things we hide, his. I remember what it was like to live without secrets; I am not that boy anymore. He's been gone a long time.

The first rules were the hardest to learn and the easiest to keep.

It seemed only natural, then, only right to follow in the footsteps of vengeance, to follow him into this crusade. It was exciting being someone other than Dick Grayson, boy who lost his entire life to crime, to become instead the boy wonder who devoted his entire life to fighting it.

I never forgot. I knew why we didn't tell anyone who we really were, felt important and mature and brave to be trusted with _our secrets_.

No one at school ever knew I took flight. No one guessed at my wings--red and green and gold. No one knew who gave me those wings, who taught me to fly.

Even when I wanted to be my own man--my own _bat_ \--I didn't betray this trust.

I've always been convinced that if I told the truth, any truth, I wouldn't be believed anyway.

 _Hi! Dick Grayson. Ward of ditzy billionaire playboy. I mention billionaire?  
Hi! Dick Grayson. My guardian is actually Batman. Ha! Who knew.  
Hi! Dick Grayson. My guardian--hello, Batman?--he trained and turned me into Robin. Neato-keen, right?_

There are secrets we both know, that we alone keep. These truths are the most painful to hide and the most important to keep hidden.

 _Hi. Dick Grayson. My guardian--Bruce, Batman, both--and I are in love. Ha. Who knew._

I'm not sure when I learned those lessons. Somewhere between adolescent impetuousness and upstart adult rebellion. Somewhere during sparring bouts and shouting matches. Somewhere when I grew to look him in the eye, hold my own, and he realized I could.

When I could read what his look meant--that look--devotion and fear and need that he regards me with, still.

Our first fumbled kisses when he'd push me away, tell me no no no we can't be we aren't we won't do this. My insistence that yes, we would, we were. He knew it, too; Bruce always did have more patience, more immediate sense than me.

I remember the first time I came in his hand--both of us still dressed, just undone--my fingers digging into his back, palms on each of his broad shoulders, hips wild in surrender. I thought I'd die; I thought I had died. He'd pulled me close and kissed me and I tasted myself--cleaned from his hand on his lips his tongue in his mouth--and his eyes held mine when he made me promise.

 _No one else can know_.

We'd kissed, again, sealed our fate. I'd shifted in his lap, hands quick and sure and he'd grunted with surprise, came hard and fast and that time I knew I'd found something beyond what I was living.

I'd promised. I didn't know how to give him anything else but myself, my word, back then. Close to eighteen and I'd thought I knew everything. I hadn't, but I knew how to keep everything that mattered.

Those rules were easy to learn and almost impossible to keep.

There were days when I thought I'd go crazy, wanting him and needing us and the enforced distance that kept us apart. It was a different kind of excitement. Grown up, grown into being someone other than Ward of the Manor. Stolen kisses and gropes and fucks in dark hallways and his office and sometimes the Cave. We were devoted to one another but couldn't show it; our whole, true selves only existed, only _lived_ at night.

I never broke. I knew why we didn't tell anyone who we really were to each other, felt committed and secure and loved to be entrusted with _our secret_.

Thing is, he'd promised that day, too. We've kept it--our word--to each other.

No one knows that together he and I soar. No one guessed he is why I returned to my wings, now blue and black, my own midnight shadows. No one knows who gave me their heart, who allowed me to fly.

We lie in bed together and he sleeps, holds me to him, exhausted from the chase, from kisses and a quick lazy-loving fuck. This is where I spend every night; there is nothing about us now that we steal. We simply hide in plain sight. Alfred knows- if only because it'd be impossible at this point that he wouldn't have figured it out. Maybe Tim. Neither one is saying anything, neither one will.

The truth is I'm not Dick Grayson. I'm not Robin, former or otherwise. I'm not Nightwing.

I'm a bit of all three. But, more, I'm _his_ \--and know he is mine--which is everything.


End file.
